and it is an error young people very
naturally fall into. You think that no one was ever chastened as you
are. You say, with Jeremiah, 'No prophet is afflicted like unto this
prophet!' Now you are simply bearing your own share of the world's
trouble. How can you hope to escape the universal lot? There are
dozens of people within sight of this height of land who have borne as
much, and must bear as much again. I know this must seem a hard
philosophy, and I should not preach it to any but a stout little spirit
like yours, my Polly. These things come to all of us; they are stern
facts; they are here, and they must be borne; but it makes all the
difference in the world how we bear them. We can clench our fists,
close our lips tightly, and say, 'Since I must, I can;' or we can look
up and say cheerfully, 'I will!' The first method is philosophical and
strong enough, but there is no sweetness in it. If you have this
burden to carry, make it as light, not as heavy, as you can; if you
have this grief to endure, you want at least to come out of it sweeter
and stronger than ever before. It seems a pity to let it go for
nothing. In the largest sense of the word, you can live for your
mother now as truly as you did in the old times; you know very well how
she would have had you live."

Polly felt a sense of shame steal over her as she looked at Dr.
George's sweet, strong smile and resolute mouth, and she said, with the
hint of a new note in her voice:--

"I see, and I will try; but how does one ever learn to live without
loving,--I mean the kind of loving I had in my life? I know I can live
for my mother in the largest sense of the word, but to me all the
comfort and sweetness seems to tuck itself under the word in its
'little' sense. I shall have to go on developing and developing until
I am almost developed to death, and go on growing and growing in grace
until I am ready to be caught up in a chariot of fire, before I can
love my mother 'in the largest sense of the word.' I want to cuddle my
head on her shoulder, that's what I want. Oh, Dr. George, how does one
contrive to be good when one is not happy? How can one walk in the
right path when there does n't seem to be any brightness to go by?"

"My dear little girl," and Dr. George looked soberly out on the ocean,
dull and lifeless under the gray October sky, "when the sun of one's
happiness is set, one lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides
one's foots